The Last Lecture

Looking back on this semester I can see enormous growth in myself and the knowledge I have of entrepreneurship and what it takes to start a business. Considering the things that I have learned, if I were to have one opportunity to speak with someone who was wanting to embark on the entrepreneurial journey I would offer something along the lines of the following advice:

1.       Read “So You Want to be an Entrepreneur” by Jon Gillespie-Brown. I read this book throughout the semester and among the books that I have read on the topic of business and entrepreneurship, it is the most insightful. From performing the introspective activities in this book, I was able to determine that I am currently not in a place in my life where starting a business is feasible or a good idea. Sure there are lots of people that are starting businesses that are in the same stage of life as me, but I have learned that everyone paves their own road and I place more value on my familial relationships right now than on creating a successful business. I believe that all budding entrepreneurs should spend some time with Brown evaluating is starting a business really is what’s right for them.

2.       I would also say that they should develop a mission statement. This kind of document that declares what is important to you as a person and entrepreneur will be a guiding light when things aren't going according to plan and you are forced to make difficult decisions.

3.    I would also encourage these new entrepreneurs to develop a group of trusted advisors that can offer advice and insight. I found it really hard to take myself and my opinions out of the equation when developing the business plan. As the creator, of course I thought that the idea was great and it would make me rich but that doesn’t mean that it will. It can be really hard to maintain a proper perspective when developing the business and having eyes from the outside look at what you are doing and offer advice will be invaluable. I do believe that it will save lots of time and effort and potentially money as the business progresses.

4.    Lastly, I would remind these entrepreneurs that success in business is wonderful, but success in the family is what will really make you happy. How unfortunate is would be to launch a venture, experience incredible success, and then be all alone when you go home at night. Certainly a new business will require an enormous amount of effort, but don’t put forth so much of your personal resources that there is nothing left for those that matter most. Always make time for your spouse and family and no matter how successful you are or aren't, they will be there with you. 

Faulty Career Assumptions

Everything that I’m thinking about right now comes from a short video we watched for the course this week that was an excerpt from a lesson being given by Stan Christensen who is a professor at Stanford and a partner at Arbor Advisors. He talks about assumptions that are commonly made that lead people in the wrong direction. This was an incredibly timely lesson for me since a couple of days ago I was approached with the possibility of moving to a different department of the company I work for. In the last few days I have actually thought several of the things he points out as faulty so this was really helpful. You can watch the short video here.

The first assumption he dismisses is the thought that you should take a job because it’s a résumé builder. How do you know what a future employer will want to see on there? Choose to take a job because you want to, not because you think someone else will like that you took it. I had this exact thought earlier this week and hearing him talk about it made me reevaluate the decision I was leaning towards to make sure I was doing it because I wanted to, not because it would bolster my experience in the eyes of others.

Another thought that I had this week that he strikes down is the idea that we all should be specializing in something. I have developed a pretty strong skillset while I’ve been in the position I currently hold and have some data to prove that my methods are really effective. As I’ve developed these skills, I’ve thought about continuing on this path and then eventually leaving to offer these same skills to another company. What Christensen says here though is that instead of going with the trend of specialization we should be a generalist. And here’s why: 1) you don’t want to be stuck doing the same thing for the rest of your life (which it true, I don’t). If I become the best in the world at what I do, I will be doing only that. 2) There is a danger that the skills you specialize in will become irrelevant and obsolete, and that’s a scary thought. As I thought about this principle in the context of my current situation, I knew that a change would be right for me. I have developed some good skills in the area of digital marketing, but putting all my eggs in that basket could be pretty risky. Are we still going to be using twitter in 15 years? Maybe, but chances are technology will take us a different direction and my skills will be much less applicable.

Overall, this was the perfect video for me this week and I would recommend it to anyone who is currently faced with a career change/modification decision. It can really help you gain some perspective.

Adversity and Optimism

Thinking back on the things that we have done this week, I’m struck by a couple key things; number one is the ability to come out of and learn important lessons from adversity; number two is the ability to be optimistic. I think these two principles correlate very well and so let’s explore them a little bit.

This week I wrote a report on Steve Jobs and the difficulty that he faced in his career. Many people don’t know much about his professional trials since he started an incredibly successful company at the age of 21. But in 1985 after spending over a decade of building Apple, he was asked to leave. I honestly don’t know how I would deal with being fired by the CEO that I personally courted and hired as well as the board of directors that was full of my personal mentors. What a hit that must have been. But he learned from it and later identified it as one of the most necessary and important points in his life. He became more creative and more entrepreneurial. The things that he learned would prove invaluable when he returned to Apple in 1997. He would go on to build apple into a tech juggernaut that is currently the most valuable company in the world by market cap. I hope that I can always remember to keep a proper perspective and learn as much as possible from my adversity.

Along those same lines, our Acton hero this week was Tom Nall and one of his key points in the video was being able to be optimistic. He said, “I’m a lot like the guy that jumped off the Empire State Building. About half-way down he said, ‘so far so good!’” I was excited to hear him talk like that about optimism because I often think I may be too optimistic and am not thinking rationally. But I now see that the ability to be optimistic might just be the key to learning from adversity. If you are wallowing in sorrow over some happening in your life, you likely aren’t open to learning from the situation. I think that fostering my optimism will only bring the ability to better handle trials as opposed to creating weakness.

And…drum roll please…the $100 challenge is over.  Boy was it a learning experience. In the end, literally on last Saturday night, I met with a guy who owns some driving schools who was looking for email help. We chatted for quite a while and I gave him some initial pointers, for which he paid me. He implemented these now we are waiting to see how things go. With the changes we made, I’m confident that he will be very pleased with the results. So, all told, I made my $100 profit and had one very scary, very educational, entrepreneurial experience.

The 'Ole Family Business: Opportunity or Feud-starter?

Discussing family businesses was great for me this week. My parents own their own business and I worked for them for a couple of years. I also managed a restaurant which was family owned which showed me a different side of the family-owned business equation. From the experiences I have had and from the readings this week, I have learned that having a family owned business is great and provides a lot of awesome opportunities to the entrepreneur as well as his or her family members.

Along with these benefits of having a family business comes the increased challenges of combining family members and business operations. I really appreciated the insight that StartupNation brought this week and their 12 Steps to Family Business Success. In the end though, what became apparent to me is that most people probably see family businesses as more difficult to run because they are harder to run like a business. Whether its family owned or not, it's still a business and needs to be run like one. The challenge comes from having to fire your cousin or reduce your mother's pay.

This week I'm walking away with a new appreciation for family business. Honestly, I was one of those people that said I would never hire a family member; it complicates things too much. From the assignments I have gained the tools and knowledge to better prepare to own a family business if the opportunity presents itself. At least now I won't run from it.

As for the $100 challenge, it all rests on a phone call this evening. We had a call scheduled for Thursday night but it got bumped back to tonight because my contact was caught in meetings. I am learning some very important lessons from this experience, namely no matter how great you think your idea is it can be hard to sell, at least initially. If I really were relying on this income to support my family I would be completely stressed. But on the other hand, if I was relying on this as my income I would be doing it full-time which I currently can't do so I would have been able to dedicate a lot more time to customer acquisition. But no matter what, I certainly have felt at least a tiny portion of the stress that comes from being personally responsible for the success of a company.  

Muhammad Yunus and the Motivation of a Business

I can’t stop thinking about the principles and ideas I was  exposed to through Muhammad Yunus' commencement address at BYU. I have taken several economics classes and have studied the principles and theories of many different economists but none that I am aware of have the humanitarian vision of Mr. Yunus. He has made it his life's work to eradicate poverty from the earth and has gone about it in a way that no one else before him had. He isn't running from country to country supporting socialism and the redistribution of wealth nor is he developing an elaborate charity that simply hands out money, food, and clothes. Instead he created a micro-lending bank that gives loans to impoverished people, empowering them to pull themselves from poverty. 

As I read his words, everything he was saying rang perfectly true to me. One quote in particular will stick with me forever: "If we are not achieving something, my first suspicion will fall on the intensity of our desire to achieve it." Man that is powerful to me. His example was that we went to the moon. For goodness sake if we can put a guy on the moon can't we reduce poverty rates? Certainly. We just haven't put enough passion and resources behind making it happen. 

I would love to be able to find an opportunity to supply a need to people that would give them the tools to change their situation. I think running a business with the sole purpose of improving the human condition really resonates with millions of people, making them likely to participate in or buy a product or service. That kind of story will trump a profit-driven business any day. If someone has an idea of a way to put something like this into action, I'm all ears. Until then, I'm searching for that opportunity.

Franchising

This week we discussed a lot of the aspects of franchising and what goes into starting a franchise. For a couple years I managed a casual dining restaurant that was a franchise so studying some of these other areas of franchising was really interesting to me.

The main thing that I learned this week in relation to franchising was the fact that I’m probably not cut out for the role of franchisee. I completely understand the kinds of controls and processes that companies have to put in place when they are franchising because it is their name on the building. If a particular restaurant is very poor, a customer is likely to assume that all other restaurants from that brand are going to be the same way. So, I totally get it. They need to protect themselves and the brand they have developed. All of those regulations however make owning a franchise much like working for someone else and a lot less like owning your own company. I think if I’m going to go out on the entrepreneurial limb, it will be in a way that I have more control over and that doesn’t require me to take 5-10% off of the top of my sales to pay in royalties.

I am really in a corner with the $100 challenge. Every lead has fallen through, and my company still has $0 in sales. My last and only hope is a company in Washington that is owned by a friend of my uncle. I have a call with him late tonight and am praying that it works out. Otherwise, I have fallen face-first on this project.

Money

One of the most poignant and thought-provoking exercises that we have done all semester (at least in my opinion) was the one I just finished. The reading was a talk given my Stephen W. Gibson called "Attitude on Money." He discusses money in a way that for some reason is quite rare in the church. He specifically states that money is important and a proper view of it will lead to greater prosperity and thus the ability to bless more people.

Reflecting on that was really beneficial to me. I learned a lot about myself and what I want to accomplish in this life, both professionally and personally. Like i said in my reflections on the assignment, I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon for a very long time. What I came to realize though was I would be trading off a significant amount of family time for med school and eventually long hours at the hospital. The money that would accompany such a lifestyle just wasn't the kind of thing I was looking for and so I changed directions.

I have learned that I have developed a view of money that I certainly didn't have a couple of years ago. I view the accumulation of wealth as a stewardship granted by God to certain men and women and each will be held accountable for the way in which they dealt with the assets found in their control. I do have an earnest desire to acquire wealth to allow me to support my family, give generously to the church, and to then search for ways to bless others with the money my Heavenly Father has granted to me. I picture that has a perfect life and in that way, believe money just might be able to buy happiness, you just have to be shopping for the right things.